“It’s kind of like Houdini in reverse. Instead of trying to escape, you’re trying to be let in.”
—Tom Waits

Let words cure overnight. Beware
stale napkins that crumble
to a fine white powder
when you grab one off the stack
to wipe your face, blow your nose. Beware.

For a music lover,
you sure have bad timing.
Hurry hurry hurry.
How many days
will you wait? Hurry hurry hurry.

Sad funny lovers with bad livers
that give out too soon.
After all these years,
you still know what it means
to watch a video

filmed inside a liquor store
with your eyes closed.

You view coffee bean roasters
with your ears. A background hum
helps you count
those one seconds
at a time with wired precision.

The one who died
almost five years ago
used to wait for them
to unlock the door
at 9 am every day but

Sunday. What did he do on Sundays
when he couldn’t drive
to Wisconsin anymore?
He never drank
coffee. Yoo-hoo instead. Ensure

and vodka at the very end.
Houdini didn’t drink.

If he had decided to dive backwards
into a fish tank, he might have
never left. You used to squeeze yourself
through milk chutes
till you realized

you didn’t want
in. Outside

you remember that Indiana sky.
Sunset or sunrise,
the horizon holds corn
between its teeth.
No other silhouette will do.

Gloom. Bathos. I don’t want to be
that girl. I remember when

being that girl
meant flying a kite in Central Park.

Winking at a department store mannequin.
Seeing it wink back.

Biting a white glove. I let go
of all the strings

I’m holding. The wind died
hours ago. I wave my empty hands

through still warm air.
Another season blurs

its edges into the next.
I don’t drown.